Mexico Offers Big Bucks for Information About Drug Lords

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's government on Monday offered up to$2 million each for information leading to the arrest of 24 topdrug lords in a public challenge to the cartels' violent grip onthe country.

The list indicated that drug gangs have splintered into six maincartels under pressure from the U.S. and Mexican governments. Thetwo most powerful gangs - the Pacific and Gulf cartels - eachsuffered fractures that have given rise to new cartels, accordingto the list published by the Attorney General's Office.

The list offers rewards of up to 30 million pesos ($2 million)for 24 top members of the cartels and 15 million pesos ($1 million)for 13 of their lieutenants.

Mexico's drug violence has killed more than 9,000 people sincePresident Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 as gangsbattle each other for territory and fight off a governmentcrackdown. Some of that violence is spilling over into the UnitedStates, especially the Southwest, where kidnaps and killings are onthe rise.

The rewards are the largest Mexico has ever offered for top druglords, said Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for the Attorney General'soffice. Some of the men, such as suspected Pacific cartel leadersJoaquin Guzman and Ismael Zambada, are targeted by separate $5million reward offers from the U.S. government.

The new list appeared to be the first offering rewards for allthe most-wanted cartel members at once. The government could betrying to signal its determination to take on the cartels at thesame time, rather than one or two at a time as past administrationshave done, said Andrew Selee, director of the Wilson Center'sMexico Institute.

"It tells you a little bit about Calderon's thinking," Seleesaid. "He really sees this as something he wants to eradicate.He's willing to take them all on as a unit."

"For us, all of these people are important. Of course, some aremore emblematic than others," he said.

The document offered insight into the reorganization of thecartels more than two years into Calderon's military crackdownagainst them.

The Beltran Leyva and Carrillo Fuentes gangs - once consideredaffiliated with the Sinaloa group under the Pacific cartel alliance- were listed as their own cartels. So was La Familia, whichoperates in central Mexico and was once considered a gang thatanswered to the Gulf cartel.

Calderon's government has attributed fractures in the cartels tothe military crackdown, saying the arrest of drug kingpins has setoff internal battles for control that have led to Mexico's sharpsurge in violence. It dismisses suggestions by some U.S. officialsthat Mexico is losing control of some of its territory.

The list sends a message that Mexico is using all it resourcesto root out drug traffickers days before a visit from U.S.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a month before PresidentBarack Obama visits, said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at theCollege of William & Mary in Virginia.

Mexican officials "have been quite defensive about all the talkabout Mexico's being a failed state and that the cartels arecontrolling more and more territory," Grayson said. "I see thisas an acceleration of Calderon's policy but with one eye on theupcoming visit of the American leaders."

However, monetary rewards have not proved crucial to the captureof Mexican drug lords in recent years. Calderon's government hasnot granted rewards for any of the kingpins arrested on its watch,Najera said.

One reward - for information on a prison escape - has beengranted but not yet collected by the tipster. Medina Mora said heexpects that reward, whose amount he did not specify, would becollected soon.

Medina Mora said the government was even willing to pay drugtraffickers and cartel members for information leading to thecapture of their rivals.

"We are not ruling out that the people offering tips could bemembers of the same groups. The important thing is to have theinformation," Medina Mora said. "The offer of payment is open toanyone who offers anonymous information leading to a capture."

In the past, critics have claimed that many of Mexico's big drugbusts have come only after traffickers tipped off police abouttheir rival's shipments.

Authorities have created wanted posters, an e-mail account and aphone number to receive tips; callers are given an identificationnumber, but are not asked to give their names. The amount of thereward will depend on the "timeliness, usefulness andtruthfulness."

Stephen Meiners, a Latin America analyst for the U.S.intelligence service Stratfor, said many arrests are likely basedon anonymous tips from cartel leaders trying to get rid of rivals.

"So far that's been enough incentive to phone in these tips,"Meiners said. "I kind of doubt that the people making these callswould want to come forward to claim reward money."

Two of the people named were captured last week: VicenteZambada, the son of Ismael Zambada, and Sigifredo NajeraTalamantes, an alleged Gulf cartel hit man suspected of organizingan attack on the U.S. consulate in Monterrey.

No reward money was granted for either capture, said Najera, thespokesman for the Attorney General's office. Zambada's arrest wasthe result of an anonymous tip that only alerted authorities to thepresence of armed men at a certain location, he said. NajeraTalamantes's arrest was not based on outside information.

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